


Turn Back The Clock (Unbreak This Heart)

by RayShippouUchiha



Category: Bleach
Genre: Aizen Sosuke Being a Bastard, Aizen Sousuke Being Aizen Sousuke, Alternate Thousand Year Blood War Arc, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Always Female Kurosaki Ichigo, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Flirting, BAMF Kurosaki Ichigo, BAMF Urahara Kisuke, Bad Parent Kurosaki Isshin, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Winter War, F/M, Female Kurosaki Ichigo, Flustered Kisuke, Grief/Mourning, Hogyoku Shenanigans, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Kuorsaki Isshin's A+ Parenting, My Canon Now Kubo, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Overpowered Kurosaki Ichigo, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Kurosaki Ichigo, Protective Kurosaki Ichigo, Sort Of, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Turn Back the Pendulum Arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23220823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/pseuds/RayShippouUchiha
Summary: The Hōgyoku flares once again, burning hot enough against her skin that Ichigo wonders, absently, if it’s attempting to scorch her down to the bone.Behind her the throne of the Soul King chimes.‘Wish,’ the Hōgyoku sounds almost triumphant as it burns hotter and hotter. 'Wish.'There's a pulse of pure power.The sensation of falling backwards, of being pulled down, rises up and washes over Ichigo out of nowhere.And then, between one breath and the next, the entire world unravels.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 174
Kudos: 1967
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's me, ya gurl, back at it yet again

“You are a _fool_ , Kurosaki Ichigo,” Aizen murmurs, one hand coming up to cup Ichigo’s cheek in his palm. His thumb swipes softly, proprietarily, across the plush swell of her mouth. “Without a Soul King it will all fall, the remnants crumbling to dust. Together we could have ruled the three worlds. Remade them in our image.”

“Never wanted to rule anything,” Ichigo tells him quietly, ignoring the blood he’s smearing onto her face. It doesn’t matter. Only one thing matters to Ichigo now and it has nothing to do with _him_. “Just wanted to live, just wanted a _life_.”

“I took that from you,” something almost pleased flits across Aizen’s expression then. “Your _human_ life,” a slight sneer flickers across his face at the word before something almost _covetous_ replaces it, “it was mine to take, in the end. I forced you to evolve into what you were always meant to be. I _own_ that fragment of you, now and _forever_.”

Ichigo hears the barely there sound of whisper quiet footsteps. Catches the scent of bloodied steel and tea on the feeble wind.

Identifiers so faint that only Ichigo’s senses could ever pick them up.

They make a part of her want to hiss in a possessive sort of pleasure.

Like they always do these days.

“You don’t own shit,” Ichigo denies evenly because she refuses to let Aizen keep that idea inside of his head without making her distaste for it clear.

Ichigo is not a thing to be _owned_. And even if she was, she’d never allow herself to be leashed by someone like _Aizen Sōsuke._

There’s only one man who she’d ever give herself over to and it will _never_ be him.

Her wrists turn.

Zangetsu _twists_.

Aizen makes a small punched out and hurt sort of sound.

“You’ll never be rid of me, I-Ichigo,” Aizen gasps, blood welling in his mouth and spilling over as his body sags just a bit, his weight pressing him even further down onto Ichigo’s blades. “It’s all crumbling down now but y-you’ll never be free from me. I’ll live on in your head and your hea-”

“You will _never_ own even a _fragment_ of a piece of her,” a familiar voice rasps out from behind Aizen, “So that is more than enough of that.”

There’s a flash of familiar steel.

Aizen’s body slumps even further onto Ichigo’s blades.

His head lands on the ruined stone a handful of feet away.

Ichigo doesn’t even flinch, just heaves Aizen up and off of Zangetsu’s blades, letting him drop to the ground like the afterthought he is now.

All of her attention is, as it always is these days, focused past him.

On _Kisuke_.

Sinking Zangetsu down into the ground with a flick of her wrists, Ichigo moves. She covers the distance between her and Kisuke in the blink of an eye, her natural speed putting her into his space before his swing of Benihime’s broken blade completes its arc.

In-tune with her as always, Kisuke doesn’t even flinch at the way Ichigo suddenly appears directly in front of him. They’re so close together that Ichigo can feel the rise and fall of his chest against her own. Can feel the warm, blood tinged huff of his breath on her face.

Her arm comes up to wrap around his waist just before his knees buckle, her other hand catching the halved length of Benihime’s blade between two fingers before what’s left of the zanpakutō can fall from his grasp.

As if she’d ever let her beloved crimson princess hit the ground so disrespectfully.

“You shouldn’t move,” Ichigo murmurs to him as she flips the broken blade up into the air, catching it and then sheathing it at his side in one smooth move. “You’ll aggravate the wound.”

“Worried about me, Ichi-chan?” Kisuke replies, tone light and teasing even as his forehead presses against the side of her neck, the rasp of his stubble sending a light shiver down her spine. “You’re too kind to this humble shopkeeper.”

Ichigo just hums, her free hand coming up to smooth over the length of his hair. It’s longer now than she’s ever seen it before, brushing his shoulders and still messy looking but also softer than seems possible given their circumstances.

She ignores the fact that the Shōten has been gone for years now, just like the rest of Karakura Town.

Just like the majority of everything really.

Kisuke hasn’t been a shopkeeper in almost a decade.

He, much like Ichigo herself, has instead spent the past years being some combination of a soldier, a scientist, a war time general, and an assassin. Sometimes, most times, all of those things at once.

“You’re all I have too, you know,” Ichigo reminds him softly, a response of sorts to the unspoken truth he’d snarled at Aizen. “You have to be careful.”

“ _Hm_ ,” Kisuke hums against her throat, “about that ...”

“ _Shh_ ,” Ichigo hushes him, taking even more of his weight with ease, uncaring of the way fresh blood slides from her own wounds to mix with the steadily growing damp patch on the side of her half shredded shihakusho. It doesn’t matter. “I know.”

Because, despite how everything inside of her rebels against the very idea, Ichigo does know.

They’re both running on less than fumes, Benihime is shattered, and they’re alone with no help on the way.

With no possible help left to come.

Every time Ichigo inhales she can smell it, can _taste_ it.

Blood, a familiar and precious life-scent that sits thick and heavy like honeyed peaches on the back of her tongue.

She knows _exactly_ how this is going to end.

Ichigo focuses on moving Kisuke carefully, hands gentle as she shifts his weight until she can move the both of them some distance from Aizen’s body.

It’s slow and careful going but finally she gets them situated as comfortably as possible. Movements careful, Ichigo sinks down to rest with her back pressed against cold, smooth stone and settles Kisuke gently into the open v of her legs.

A raised knee keeps him propped upright for a moment but Kisuke shudders just a bit, shifts, and then slumps to the side and further into her space.

Ichigo cradles him close, his head resting on her chest, one hand coming up to smooth down the length of his hair.

Her free hand comes up to tug lightly at the loc of hair that falls between his eyes even still, even after everything else that’s changed about and around them. Then she traces a gentle fingertip down the stitch like scar that flows from below his right eye all the way down across his cheek to the curve of his jaw.

Kisuke sighs deeply, a too wet and shuddering sound, and brings a trembling arm up enough to catch her hand in his own. He holds it for a moment and then brings it down to press a soft kiss against her fingertips.

Then he moves her hand until her palm is cupping his left cheek, her fingers brushing over the black silk of his eye-patch.

It used to be jarring back in the beginning, the reminder of his missing eye, but after four years or so Ichigo barely even thinks about it anymore except to wish she could have changed things.

Now it's just a part of Kisuke.

The proof of a hard lesson.

A reminder to be _careful_.

Because, with Unohana-taichou and Orihime both long gone and their skills and abilities lost to the ether, they’d learned the hard way that not even Benihime could reconstruct everything.

Some things, once obliterated with a kidō inscribed knife in an almost successful assassination attempt, simply stayed gone.

Kisuke had taken the loss with his unique combination of strange grace, wry humor, and many comparisons between himself and Shunsui. And then, bandages still fresh, he’d slid off and trained with a vengeance to become used to the change in depth perception as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, even after he’d readjusted as best he could, there’d just never been time for Kisuke to fully perfect the formulas and equations for the prosthetic he used to spend hours raving about to Ichigo on otherwise quiet nights.

There was, Ichigo muses absently, never really enough time for a lot of things.

Like always though Ichigo can’t help but trace the almost inappropriately cheerful strawberry that’s embroidered in the center of the patch.

Uryū had been such a pushy asshole who never knew when to leave well enough alone. Especially after Karakura Town had been destroyed.

Uryū had latched onto Ichigo even harder than before in the aftermath of the destruction. Any and all previous distance that had been between them had been erased as he’d clung to their distant family ties with the ferocity of a drowning man.

It had only gotten worse once they'd lost Orihime. He'd been inconsolable for the longest time, raging in a way no one had expected from him before he'd finally managed to ice it over just a bit.

Then, from that moment on, everything from Ichigo's diet to her wardrobe to her non-existent love life had very firmly become Uryū's domain.

In return Ichigo had pulled him closer, had boosted him up, and watched over him even more closely than normal in turn.

She'd done her best to hold him and everyone else above the water for as long as possible.

But she'd only been able to do so much and they’d all been drowning back then, in one way or another.

In the end though, that meddling sort of interference he’d taken to where she was concerned, had gotten him killed. He’d gone out on a mission that was supposed to be Ichigo’s not too long after he’d given Kisuke the eye-patch.

He'd left her with some pointed looks and a hissed promise to bury her and Kisuke alive together in a very small box when he got back.

And then he and his squad had walked right into an ambush.

None of them had walked back out.

Ichigo misses him.

Misses him just like she misses all the others.

But Ichigo has no intention of missing Kisuke.

Healing kidō have never been Ichigo’s strong suit but reiryoku transfusions are something she’s long grown accustomed to. She’d been used as a battery, as a spiritual power grid of sorts, more than once in the past.

Once more won't be hard to do.

No matter the consequences.

Because her reiryoku is rich and _strong_ but here, so soon after fighting for so long, after a battle ten years of one war after another in the making, and with no time to _rest_ , there’s so little of it left to give.

Too little for two.

But that doesn’t actually matter to Ichigo.

Because, even if she barely has anything left inside of her, Ichigo knows that whatever there is, is Kisuke’s to have.

She is, as always, ready and willing to give her literal all.

Bolstered by the willpower that has seen her cut down armies and would be gods alike, Ichigo summons what reiryoku she can and begins to slowly trickle it into Kisuke’s system.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Kisuke stops her, a hand coming up to clench around her wrist with surprising strength, not even a second after she’s begun. “Don’t do that to me.”

“ _Kisuke_ …” Ichigo whispers his name, one part plea and one part demand.

“ _Please_ ,” Kisuke doesn’t waver, his thumb stroking over the thin skin of her inner wrist. “ _Don’t_ , Ichigo. That’s one weight I will never be able to carry. Don’t make me.”

Ichigo shudders.

And then she lets the trickle fade to a stop.

“Thank you,” Kisuke sighs, his hand dropping from her wrist as he shifts again until the arm trapped between them can wrap itself around her waist instead.

The stone beneath Ichigo is _wet_. The side of her shihakusho and the legs of her hakama are both soaked through.

The puddle beneath her grows ever wider by the second.

Behind Ichigo the throne of the Soul King sits _empty_.

In her arms Kisuke takes another shuddering breath.

Ichigo only cares about one of those things.

“It’s selfish but … will you cry for me, Ichigo?” Kisuke asks, voice halting as he swallows repeatedly. “I always thought it'd be ... _nice_ … to have someone cry for me.”

“For an idiot Geta-bōshi like you?” Ichigo asks, voice thick. They both know she hasn’t cried since Toshiro. Had refused to allow herself the luxury or the momentary weakness. Not even over Grimmjow who would have willed himself back to life and killed her himself if she'd dared. “ _Never_.”

“So cruel,” Kisuke hums out the familiar phrase even as he tangles the fingers of one hand in the ragged fabric of her hakama and the other in the ends of her hair that pools around them both like ribbons of sunset. “Denying a man’s last request like that.”

They both ignore the scent of salt in the air and the wetness that drips down onto Kisuke’s temple.

For a long moment neither of them say anything.

They just sit there, pressed together, blood and breath ebbing and flowing together like the sea.

Kisuke rests against her, face tucked into the curve of her throat, while Ichigo counts every one of his slowing heartbeats like the precious, _fading_ , gifts that they are.

“I have words that belong to you, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Kisuke finally breaks the silence. “But I don’t think I’ll say them. Not now. But they’ve been yours … for a long time.”

“You can tell me tomorrow,” Ichigo agrees even as her eyes slip closed, the hand on the back of Kisuke’s head presses him just a bit closer. “We’ll have tea. I’ll have some words for you too.”

For a moment, only a moment, Ichigo pretends as if she can hold him just a bit tighter and stop what they both know is happening from coming to pass through sheer force of will alone.

“Yes,” Kisuke coughs wetly. “ _Tomorrow_.”

They both know the promise for the lie that it is.

Ichigo has performed miracles in the past.

This won't be one of them.

In the depths of Ichigo’s soul, deep in the bone white buildings and endless rain storm that is now her inner world, all is quiet.

Except for the dual toned mourning cry that begins to echo.

Still pressed down into the blood soaked stone, Zangetsu’s blades almost seem to hum.

All the pieces of Ichigo’s multi-faceted soul singing out together in some mixture of rage and grief.

And, above all else, even though she's never said the words, they cry for _love_.

“Whatever happens next ... I’ll remember you,” Kisuke promises softly.

“You know that’s not how it works,” Ichigo reminds him roughly even as she pulls him even closer. “If any of it still works at all.”

“ _Hmm_ ,” Kisuke hums out a long, _slow_ breath that ends on a wet gasp. “There’s … _nowhere_ my soul could go where it wouldn’t know you ... _Ichigo_.”

A pause.

A _gasp_.

 _“Kisuke,”_ Ichigo whispers softly into the still air, _“please don’t go.”_

But ...

There’s no answer.

Ichigo tightens her arms around the too still body in her hold, buries her face in messy blond hair, and then reaches down to wrap her fingers around a strong, calloused hand that’s already growing cold.

She twines their fingers together, presses her lips against his temple, and just …

 _Drifts_.

~~~

Time passes in an unmeasured haze.

Ichigo doesn’t bother to move.

Instead she stays there, cradling Kisuke, right up until the moment that she can’t any more.

Right up until all that’s left of him drifts away too, the flickering bits of light that were once the man who made up her entire world drifting up and away from her like fireflies.

Hand clenched around familiar black silk, Ichigo just leans her head back against the throne behind her, unseeing eyes pointed up towards the sky.

This time Ichigo doesn’t so much _drift_ as she just …

 _Stops_.

~~~

It’s the prod of a familiar energy that finally sparks Ichigo back to life some unknown amount of time later.

Ichigo ignores it for as long as possible before the insistent lash of it finally forces her to move.

Her body feels stiff and _old_ somehow despite the way her wounds have healed and her reiryoku has already replenished itself.

Pushing herself up and onto her feet feels like the work of an age.

But she does it, of course.

Led by the call, Ichigo ghosts back towards where Zangetsu still stands, blades driven deep into the stone. It’s an automatic move to grab her zanpakutō and put it back where it belongs on her back.

On the ground in front of her all traces of Aizen’s body are gone of course.

But, in its place, is something else.

Ichigo stands there, Zangetsu on her back, hair swaying in the feeble wind, and stares down at the Hōgyoku for the longest time.

It pulses, a steady and slow rhythm, in perfect time with her heartbeat.

Ichigo reaches down, picks it up, and then turns and ghosts back towards the still empty throne.

She stops at the edge of the dais, stares at the cause of all of this, and then moves to settle back down into her former place, a hand coming up and automatically adjusting Zangetsu.

She’d told Aizen the truth after all.

Ruling was never what Ichigo wanted.

She most certainly has no interest in it now, standing here alone at the end of all things.

What use is ruling all three worlds if there's nothing left in any of them for her?

In Ichigo’s hand, pressed against her blood soaked palm, the Hōgyoku _burns_.

 _‘Protector,’_ the word, more feeling than anything somehow, whispers its way across Ichigo’s mind. _‘Master. Wish.’_

“Not your master,” Ichigo tells the stone. She feels a certain sort of sympathy and kinship towards it, one hybrid to another.

But she also doesn’t want it.

Never has.

It is, in her opinion, both a victim and the center of too much suffering.

Too much power in too small a space.

 _‘Worthy,’_ the Hōgyoku insists in a flurry of feelings turned to words. _‘Only worthy. First Protector. Wish.'_

Ichigo doesn’t have a wish.

Not really.

Not anymore.

All of her wishes are dead.

All Ichigo could ever really want is something that she knows will never happen.

All she could ever want now would be the chance to go _back_.

To stop all of this from happening.

To stop Aizen before he started.

To warn the Gotei 13 and all of Soul Society about what’s to come.

_To see Kisuke once again._

The Hōgyoku flares once again, burning hot enough against her skin that Ichigo wonders, absently, if it’s attempting to scorch her down to the _bone_.

Behind her the throne of the Soul King _chimes_.

 _‘Wish,’_ the Hōgyoku sounds almost triumphant as it burns hotter and hotter. _'Wish.'_

There's a pulse of pure power.

The sensation of falling backwards, of being pulled _down_ , rises up and washes over Ichigo out of nowhere.

And then, between one breath and the next, the entire world _unravels_.


	2. Chapter 2

Kisuke is jolted out of his work at the sound of klaxons blaring, the high pitched alarms cutting through his concentration with ease.

All around his laboratory warning sirens _screech_ as the sensors that had been painstakingly settled around Seireitei erupt into noise and light.

Kisuke’s up and moving not even a second later, feet barely touching the ground as he moves towards the nearest sensor dedicated workstation.

“Urahara-taichou!” Kuna, Kisuke’s sixth seat, comes skidding into the room, her face red and chest heaving. “Every sensor around Seireitei has gone crazy! What’s happening?”

“An anomaly,” Kisuke murmurs, barely blinking as he focuses on the information pouring into his system, intrigue and curiosity flaring to life inside of him at what he sees. The sensors are going haywire, showing spikes that trail off of the charts and are still steadily growing. “Or perhaps a flaw in the system and sensors. These readings, this level of power … _it’s not possible_ …”

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, the laboratory, _the entire division_ , goes abruptly _silent_.

Eyes wide Kisuke can only stare at the smoking remnants of his equipment, the sensors no longer able to handle the energy levels they’d been registering.

Beside him Kuna sucks in a shuddering breath.

“T-Taichō?” Kuna whispers, voice reedy and filled with an undeniable sort of unease that Kisuke can’t actually fault her for.

The sensors have never failed before, not even under Kisuke’s most extensive tests.

To have the entire system crash all at once? Unheard of.

Before even Kisuke can think of anything to say the door behind them slams open once again.

“Kisuke,” Yoruichi looks grim, mouth set in a firm line and eyes narrowed. “Summon your division. All shinigami ranked sixth seat and above are to report to the grand square. Sōtaichō’s orders.”

She’s gone in the next second, space left empty as she flickers away, obviously tasked with putting her speed to good use to gather Seireitei’s forces together faster than any other messenger could ever manage to.

“What’s happening?” Kuna manages to ask.

“I believe,” Kisuke murmurs, already moving towards the door, one hand on Benihime’s hilt and mind click, _click, clicking_ away, “that we are going to war.”

~~~

Flanked by the requested seats of his division, and with Hiyori-fukutaichō fuming but for once silent at his side, Kisuke takes a moment to glance around at the assembled force.

At the might of Seireitei all gathered together in one place.

For once every division is accounted for from Taichō down to sixth seat just as Yoruichi had said, no one willing or able to ignore a direct order from the Sōtaichō himself.

Especially not a summons delivered in person by the Shihōin Goddess of Flash herself.

In the center of the square Yamamoto-sōtaichō himself stands, face grim and hands clasped tightly around his staff.

“All Taichō,” Yamamoto’s stern call causes silence to immediately sweep over the square. “Ready your divisions for battle. Seireitei is under attack.”

A ripple of unease and confusion spreads across the crowd even as they all shift, as one, into some semblance of battle readiness.

Kisuke understands why. There’s not a ripple of foreign or aggressive reiatsu in the air. Outside of the square and the gathered mass of shinigami, there’s no sign of a hostile force, no sounds of an attack of any sort.

Everything is quiet.

 _Peaceful_.

It’s only his years in service to _Onmitsukidō_ and the memory of his destroyed and smoking equipment that keeps Kisuke quiet.

“You can feel it too then?” Unohana-taichō’s quiet question has a similar impact as Yamamoto’s announcement had, silence falling abruptly across the gathered mass out of respect. “It flickers there, just on the edge of my senses. A veiled ocean licking at a shoreline I can barely see.”

When Kisuke looks in her direction, Unohana-taichō’s expression is serene, as even and calm as always.

Except for her eyes.

For a split second Kisuke’s sure he can see something wild and bloody flicker to life just beneath the surface of her expression before it’s washed away again.

“Indeed,” Yamamoto nods slightly in her direction, expression pensive.

“I don’t sense anything?” someone in the crowd finally murmurs, confusion and disgruntlement obvious in their tone.

“No,” Yamamoto actually answers the whisper as he turns his face back up towards the sky. “You children would not. This is power far beyond the range of your perception.”

The whispers in the crowd immediately start up again, uneasy and tense.

Kisuke feels a thrill of excitement and what might almost be _fear_ slice down his spine.

“ _There_ ,” Yamamoto raises a hand then and points towards the sky. “It comes.”

Kisuke, one hand still wrapped comfortingly around Benihime’s hilt, tilts his head back to look.

At first it looks like a falling star, like an impossible comet hurtling across the sky in a blur of golden fire and sapphire tinted stardust.

Except the trajectory, among other things, is _wrong_.

It’s moving far too fast and it’s headed right in their direction, the blinding glow of it getting brighter and brighter with every second.

And still Kisuke senses _nothing_.

“ _Brace_!” Yamamoto calls suddenly, darting backwards from the center of the square and then slamming his cane down in front of him so hard that the stone shatters, a barrier springing into place seconds later.

Kisuke moves to do the same, Benihime’s blade flashing out to throw up his own protections as around the square taichō and fukutaichō alike move to bring up their own barriers and guards.

In the end it doesn’t matter.

Between one breath and the next there’s a sudden burst of sound, an ear splitting crack ringing out across them all. It sounds almost as if the sky itself has shattered like so much glass, like a hole has been punched through the very fabric of existence, reality ripped apart as easily as rice paper.

Then the center of the square where Yamamoto had just been standing abruptly _explodes_.

Not even Benihime’s barrier is enough to protect Kisuke from the shock-wave that ripples out from the impact point. It’s enough to send everyone in the square flying backwards as the very ground beneath their feet shudders and moves like a wave as chunks of stone and earth go flying.

Not even Yamamoto-sōtaichō manages to keep his feet, stumbling back and falling down onto one knee as he struggles to stay upright against the shock-wave and debris.

Kisuke’s entire world is suffused in a brilliant light so bright his eyes clench themselves shut on reflex.

When he blinks them open again seconds later, automatically pushing himself back up onto his feet as he goes, all Kisuke can do is stare at the now destroyed grand square in _awe_.

Whatever has fallen upon Seireitei is unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

~~~

Ichigo falls backwards, is pulled _down_ and _under_ a world, an _existence_ , unraveling at the seams for what seems like an eternity and less than a heartbeat all at the same time.

Caught falling in this place between all things, time ceases to have any real meaning.

Around her there’s only light, only the glow of the cocoon like threads of power the Hōgyoku has wrapped around her.

 _‘First Protector,’_ the Hōgyoku practically croons as it pulses and hums and writhes against and inside of her as she falls. _‘Worthy. Worthy. Only worthy. Ours. Ours. Ours.’_

Ichigo can’t help but think, just a bit absently and with a certain sort of apathy, that any other time she’d already be fighting this. At any other time and place she would already be raging against even the _idea_ of being tied up liked this. Of being covered and cocooned and _trapped_.

Like with so many other things there’s only one hand Ichigo would have ever allowed to wrap her up in strings and threads. Only one person she’d have ever been willing to give that much of her control over to.

But, in the end, Kisuke had slipped through her fingers just like everything and everyone else, turned to fireflies and stardust just like the rest of the three worlds and all she’s ever held dear.

Because, even though she’d lived through it all, Ichigo hadn’t been fast enough, _strong_ enough, to hold onto anything that really mattered to her when all was said and done.

So Ichigo knows that, once upon a time, she would have fought this no matter how sweetly the Hōgyoku whispers to her, no matter how fond of her it seems to be.

But _now_ …

Now, surrounded by light, hollowed out and yet still bleeding out inside from sheer _loss_ , Ichigo doesn’t have it in her to fight anymore.

Not over something that just … doesn’t matter all that much.

There is nothing more the Hōgyoku could do to her, no other way left for it to hurt her even if it wanted to.

So instead Ichigo just closes her eyes …

And surrenders herself to the fall.

All the while the Hōgyoku whispers in her ear as it wraps itself around her heart, as it burrows its way into her mind and burns itself a place in the depths of her very _soul_.

As it cracks her open and pours itself inside of her.

Ichigo feels every agonizing yet numb moment of it as if from a distance, feels it as the frigid sapphire of the Hōgyoku crests against the black and crimson ocean that has defined her power for years now.

And yet Ichigo still can’t muster the will to actually care as the Hōgyoku burrows and _takes_ and _changes_.

As impossible constellations burst into being through the endless rainstorm above the bone white buildings of her inner world.

The Hōgyoku’s will is it’s own as it twines the two of them so closely together that in the space of a heartbeat not even Ichigo can tell where she ends and the Hōgyoku begins anymore.

Two hybrids joining as one as the Hōgyoku willingly grants her the perfect evolution of being that Aizen had spent so long desperately grasping at.

A perfect ascendancy.

 _‘Wish,’_ the Hōgyoku chimes once again an instant sort of eternity later. As always its voice is less true speech than a flurry of feelings made into words. _‘Worthy. First Protector. Only worthy.’_

But this time it feels _different_ somehow.

It feels as if it’s fading away at the edges.

Evaporating like mist in the dawn.

But even as the Hōgyoku’s chiming call fades away and the cocoon around her begins to pulsate with golden light, Ichigo doesn’t care either way.

Instead she just tightens her grip on black silk, turns her face from the swirling, flashing lights of an unraveling existence, and buries herself in the memory of husky laughter and the scent of bloodied steel and tea.

Alone at the end of all things Ichigo has no use for ascendancy.

~~~

Wrapped in the bittersweet haven of her memories, Ichigo falls through an endless eternity with only echoes to cling to.

Wrapped in golden ribbons of power Ichigo falls _and falls and falls_.

Then, just as suddenly as it had all started, everything _shatters_.

And reality floods in around the edges.

~~~

Instinct has Ichigo shifting, cat like, in the air, body automatically orienting itself seconds before she hits the ground.

Her impact sends out a shock-wave, cratering the ground beneath her like the impact of one of her more controlled cero blasts.

For a long moment she just stands there, Zangetsu on her back and eyes tracking the golden power that’s wafting off of her skin.

The Hōgyoku really had altered her it seems, changed her on a fundamental level.

Yet another evolution of self that she will, undoubtedly, have to get used to.

Her senses automatically stretch themselves out, a survival reflex honed from years of war, as she searches for things, for people, Ichigo knows she _will not find_.

Grief roars through her again, the aching cut of a thousand wounds, the multi-toned howl of mourning echoing inside of her, bouncing off of bone white buildings and constellations that turn rain into droplets of starlight.

But then a second passes, then two, and Ichigo can hear and _feel_ the impossible sounds of movement, of _people_ and _life_ , just past the rim of her crater.

Before she can focus on it, before she can puzzle out the sudden existence of what she _knows_ are _shinigami_ , her head abruptly jerks up and to the right, senses narrowing in on something that should be _impossible_.

She’s moving in the next second, body flickers out of existence as she clears the rim of the crater in the space of a half heartbeat.

Her entire being is locked onto one thing, one person.

One heartbreaking, soul rending, impossibility.

Because she can sense it there, bright like the sun against the senses she’d honed until she could pick that one signature out from all others no matter what.

She can hear it like the elegant chiming of kanzashi bells in the distance, can practically feel it brushing against her skin like the glide of rich kimono silk across razor sharp steel.

 _Benihime_.

And there, the scent and taste of bloodied steel and tea blossoming across her tongue as she drags in a deep, greedy breath.

 _Kisuke_.

Somehow, someway, he’s _here_.

He’s here and _whole,_ reiatsu spilling out into the air around them and Ichigo's beloved crimson princess no longer shattered into pieces.

And there is no force in all the words strong enough to stand in Ichigo’s way.

Whatever this is, whatever the Hōgyoku has done to her, wherever it has taken her or whatever illusion it’s trapped her in now, Ichigo doesn’t _care_.

She’d lost Kisuke once.

She refuses to do so again.

~~~

Kisuke has barely gained his feet when there’s a sudden flash of movement from the center of the crater.

The glowing golden light in the center of it _disappears_ , flickering out of existence so fast that not even Kisuke can track it.

His senses scream then, Benihime practically vibrates in his hand as she screeches something that doesn’t feel so much like a warning as it does _acknowledgement_.

Kisuke’s body moves on instinct alone, his zanpakutō flashing out in a sharp arc.

Kisuke _blinks_.

And then his eyes blow wide.

There, standing just inside the arc of his blow, two fingers holding Benihime’s blade back with an absent sort of ease, is a _woman_.

Hair like the sunset, a tattered but still recognizable shihakusho clinging to the curves of her body, and a golden glow pouring off of her skin like ribbons of sunlight.

Kisuke has _never_ seen anything, _anyone_ , like her before.

 _'Beautiful,’_ Kisuke can’t help but think as he stares down into wide golden brown eyes, held in place by the sheer intensity of her gaze as everything else around them seems to almost disappear.

All of his senses honing in until there’s only _her_.

And then she raises her free hand up and _touches him_.

Long, elegant looking fingertips press against the arc of his left cheekbone before they skim up and over his eye with an exquisite sort of gentleness. Careful fingers tug lightly at the loc of hair that falls between his brows before she skims her fingertips down over the arch of his nose and then turns her hand so that she can cup his cheek in her palm.

Kisuke’s heart skips a beat and then begins to pound as a shudder runs down his spine.

This close, her skin pressed against his own, Kisuke can feel just the hint of what must truly be an _ocean_ of power churning just beneath her surface.

“ _Kisuke_ ,” her voice is warm and husky and filled with an _ache_ he doesn’t understand as she stares up at him with a look in her haunting eyes that he can’t quite describe.

“H-Hello,” Kisuke manages to stutter out, shaken and thrown and unsure of how to handle all of this and unable to fully grasp the calm sort of composure that's always been such a large part of who he is.

Then, this woman he doesn't know but who touches him with such tenderness it makes something inside of him ache, _smiles_.

And in that moment Kisuke feels as if his heart might break.

**Author's Note:**

> Make sure you let me know what you think and come scream at me on tumblr
> 
> http://rayshippouuchiha.tumblr.com/
> 
> And check out this story tag at #Turn Back The Clock AU


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